Following the expulsion of Yugoslavia in 1948 from the Cominform (Communist Information Bureau), the organization of Communist parties, and the growing tensions with the Soviet Bloc, Bosnia became central to Tito’s self-defence strategy. “All People’s Defence” concept devised by Tito, integrated all citizens in the defence of the federation. Military service, labour service, civil defence and material contribution were compulsory. Military facilities and defence structures were built on a grand-scale through out the Republics, also because of massive financial assistance from the United States.

Among the engineering defence related projects we can find in the city of Konjic, around 40 kilometres south of Sarajevo, the underground arms factory Igman (with five galleries enclosing 20,000 square meters) and the underground atomic war command and control center, the bunker OBJECT ARK. The bunker was codified as D-0, the most rigorous state secret. Located in the middle of the Zlatar Mountain, at a depth of circa 300 meters, on a 6,500 square meters area, the 26 years long project was completed in 1979, one year before Tito died.

The anti-atomic construction was aimed to function, in case of a nuclear attack, as a Military Operation center and a shelter for President Tito, his wife and representatives of the political and military ruling class, 350 people in total. They could live and work there for six months without ever coming outside. The ARK was kept secret for 30 years, its existence was only known, other then Tito, to very few generals and soldiers who guarded the building after its completion, until Bosnia separated from Yugoslavia in 1992.    

ARK D-0 exists today only because of the Bosnian military guard, who refused to carry out an order from Serbian high command in Belgrade, who wanted to blow up the bunker in 1992. Since then the building is still much in the same condition as it was during the Yugoslav era with all of its furnishings, equipment signs, symbols and instrument intact. The whole facility and its elaborate heating and ventilation systems have remained fully functioning, even during the 1992-95 war.

The propaganda billboard depicted in the picture used for the installation Silence is violence was to be found around the Hanford Atomic Plant site in Washington, USA, established in 1943 as part of the “The Manhattan Project”, the top secret Atomic Bomb WWII operation conducted by the United States. The project got expanded through out the Cold War period. Workers and inhabitants living nearby were threatened and obliged to keep secrec­­y about the construction. The same logic indeed was imposed in Bosnia and in this specific context in Konjic, regarding the D-0 ARK Underground bunker and the Igman ammunition factory next to it.

The collective memory of the people who lived and worked in Konjic at that time tells that the bunker workers had to sign secrecy contracts, meaning they would not say anybody for what, who and where they were working; workers were blindfolded when transported to the building site, only being allowed to remove the band once inside; they didn’t quite know the scope of their hard work; as the galleries of the bunker and the factory were side by side many workers believed that they were working on the factory site, although being in the bunker one; workers teams were changing often; to meet the needs of these constructions, workers were relocated to Bosnia from other republics; it also took a lot of lives, not a single shift passed without a fatality.

These are the little information I could put together about the workers and their work conditions, nothing such as a deep analytical report or written documents can be found. With the break–up of Yugoslavia the JNA (Yugoslav People’s Army) transported back to Serbia all the documents related to the site. All top secrets documents cannot be public until 50 years has passed. In the case of the bunker as it was in function from 1979, we would need to wait until 2029 to have access to those archives.